question of the day

Is there ever an instance when immature transition into young at heart? i sure hope so... and if it does, when? how? these are just the thoughts that zoom across my mind when im trying to sleep  

ckah

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DIY: pedestal cake stand

so i had to wait until after christmas to post this... then i got distracted. so here it is now:

I made my christmas presents this year. I only made two. so dont feel to beneath me; its not that great of an accomplishment.. i made one for my mom and one for my dear best friend; Shawni. You know the later of the two, and I couldn't put the diy on the blog because she would see it and that would ruin the surprise and all the suspense I had built up over my grand gift. 

so it is no surprise that I am a huge internet window shopper, and one of my favorite links to peruse is anthropologie.com, so last summer I was looking at things that were pretty to wish for but i could never justify or fathom purchasing anything from their pretty kitchen section. I saw a gorgeous pedestal cake stand; I drooled, and then thought of numerous things I could put under the glass dome. but nothing seemed adequate enough, especially for the price tag of $295... I would have to give my boyfriend my left hand as payback for having a ridiculous lapse in judgement. I closed the shopping cart and went about my day. Dont worry, having the random memory bank that I do, I kept the dream alive in my imagination, in my dream kitchen the pedestal cake stand lived on my dream counter top of my dream kitchen island and through my dream bay window a beacon of warm sunlight hits just right at 5 pm and under the gleaming glass dome of glory, was a beautiful slice of aged brie over priced yes, but delicious and will stay fresh and never go bad. aaaaanyways, back on track... yes i kept it alive. well i was going through target in November and what did I 

find to my surprise?

This beautiful creature!!! A cheese plate with glass dome. (still available online for $19) so I put three in my cart.. I had a plan. and my plan was just to buy a random pedestal candle holder, put them together... and paint them whatever color i desired for each person... so down the aisle and around the corner i went smiling like an idiot... 

and what did i see??... NATE Berkus' handsome face!

I don't really know if what I found had his name attached; but what I do know is that seeing him on Oprahs' show growing up; he knows what he is talking about in the home decor department, so my mind is already singing his praises as I search for literally 2.7 seconds, when i see two pillar candle holders, one 10 inch, and the other 14 inches...

yep. that's it, aren't they pretty? that's the 10 inch pillar, and the 14, you get the idea... you guessed it just 4 inches bigger... anyways, i put them in the cart and in my head it seems super easy just to glue the two together. right? totally... get home, and sit down... and start to ponder the right course of action.

i grab wax paper, sharpie, scissors, and sandpaper, wood glue, and my 3 lbs. hand weights... (would've been smarter to grab a tape measure, but I'm not a very smart DIY-er, so...) I went with the wax paper and sharpie method...

step 1: I trace the cheese board on the wax paper with the sharpie... yep. done, easy....BAM! I rule!!  cant be that hard right?

step 2: cut out circle, yep... still easy i think

step 3: fold in half, fold it in half again, (looking back the smartest way to go about this step would be to cut the middle corner off... so there would be a big hole, just use sharpie to get the middle of the plate... but I didn't think of it 'til just now.. that's not what i did... ) what did I do? I just scribbled a x on the wax paper until it seeped thru on the bottom cheese board... yes, I look smarter than I am apparently...

step 4: find pliers 

step 5: attempt to take off the black metal candle holder plate on the candle holder... one easy, the other... not the case, get bk to take apart the second one.

step 6: find a tape measure.. duh, that would've helped me in step one... but hey

step 7: measure the diameter of the candle holder; its 4 inches.. you're welcome...

step 8: make a 4x4 square in the middle of cheese board.. 

step 9: sand your heart out.... until all the stain is off the rim of the candle holder and the square in the middle of the cheese board

step 10: wood glue the rim of the candle holder... place in the sanded square on the cheese board. place hand weight on the candle pillar and let dry over night

step 11. admire your work... you deserve it

 (didnt bk take a great picture? i am so happy he is a great photographer... it looks like an ad on a website or something... granted the border is all me... )

lets get physical...pyshical

"so this is the new year

I don't feel any different"

I love death cab for cutie and annually around December 20th this song is put back on my phone and playlists. However this year for some reason I didn't. This year is also the year that I am still working on my resolutions. 

I know what you're thinking 

"oh ya?! seven days into the new year and you haven't given up?! great work!" 

finished with a sarcastic sneer and a exuberant thumbs up...

YES IT IS only seven days into the new year; and for the first time in history of making resolutions I'm not pretending that I will get to them later, I am not taking them on "slowly" with the intent to pick up speed as the year progresses. 

So its kinda funny to me that I didn't foreshadow my demise with a song that I love before the start of the year. Instead I have tried, succeeded, and hopefully will continue to do so with many of my resolutions. One of my resolutions for this year from my resolution post was to lose weight. Pretty much the second most important one on the health subsection. I know that I am unhealthy; I'm "skinny fat" Ive know that for a while; frankly its quite embarrassing to know something and to consciously make no effort to do anything about it when its so easy. Seeing myself before this week makes me feel like a waste of humanity. (wow this is getting deep and depressing real fast) lets go ahead and turn this post around shall we. 

So luckily for me Bk wanted to get more physically fit this year too! I knew that would help me just not to have someone to jog with but have someone not let me say no.... but we've been through this whole thing before and as much as I love and respect him as a person, partner, and impression on me, i need more. not more in the idea of $30-$50 for a gym membership a month, that would just be counter productive for other resolutions that are money saving goals. because honestly, I have tried that approach too... and yet again I eventually end up back on the couch complaining about my increasing middle section (stomach fat). So luckily this year my personal planner (Bk) was on the best website to waste hours of your time and found a thread that lead him to different resolutions and ways to keep up with them.... low and behold he finds a running thread that in turn leads him to a running app...huzzah! an app? of course there is an app for everything. after doing our research and finding an app that was on the app store (me) and android marketplace (bk) we made the small purchase of $2.99 ($1.99 on android) and including tax it comes to roughly $4 ... that is way better than paying for a gym membership monthly (for me). 

so the app it self is pretty self explanatory. its called c25k (<-- link to i-tunes store) its great. I'm not really trying to run a 5k right now, I might be into it some other time, but for right now all I wanna do is run, get some exercise and work on my health. granted its only three times a week; and it is a slow and steady increase over seven weeks... I don't want to unrealistically say, "okay run 4 miles a day, set, go!" I know that will not work for me.. slow and steady is supposed to win the race right? so yes I highly recommend this app... you can pick the trainer, you can set your own playlist. there is a gps map part so you can see how long you were walking, jogging, and your distance. so nice.. and I personally like the fact that she tells me when to walk and when to jog and i can just go... I don't have to check anything and then when its over you get to cool down. 

I've done the first two days of the first week... and i am excited every time we get going,Ii don't dread it, I don't hate it during, and i'm not mad or (too)sore after, all things that help me keep with it. so all in all a solid two thumbs up from me.

and i know i am doing something that is making my mental and physical self happy because after the first day of doing the jog I had a dream that i couldn't stop drinking orange juice.. just cut scene, after cut scene (about seven) of me drinking orange juice... weird; yes I know, I don't drink it frequently, and i also tend to forget my dreams before i wake up.... but I didn't, so I went online and checked what its interpretation was :

 

its gotta means I'm doing something right, right?

sure hope so...

so if your in the market to loose some lbs. (here's hoping) and get some exercise and are not looking to get involved in any membership fees, or contracts, try it out. 

Lipstick challenge 2013

So I am trying my hardest to keep up with the numerous resolutions that i have put into action yesterday. And a couple the majority of them are in the realm of helping myself be the best that I can be, personally and professionally...
So I figured that one one the easiest ones would be to wear lipstick everyday. I decided to make it a challenge; that way it would be kind of fun, at least I'm hoping it'll be fun. At least every couple months I get to go shopping for a new one, so at least there's that to look forward to...

I only wear lipstick for special occasions usually.. Christmas parties at work; or weddings. Any other time I just feel like a four year o.d that got into her Grandma's purse found the lipstick and proceeded to go town using the lipstick as face paint... I just end up feeling ridiculous and removing it as soon as its applied. Im gonna stick to my guns and put it on everyday/ if I don't feel appropriate with the collection I have (it's a diverse but not well thought out collection, by any means) I will put on lipgloss, but that's not going to be allowed more than once a week.

My collection of lipsticks as I have stated above are a red, an orange red, 3 very bright pinks (from a fashion show I did last year), 2 dark plummy purples (from said fashion show/ and work Christmas party this past December (it was 1920's themed)) and a light mauvey pink from a wedding last year... Slim pickings I know. But I gotta make it work. I also have a couple lip pencils, red, purple, and pink... I have two glosses, a red from smash box, and dandelion from benefit... So let's get to it, lipstick a day for a year in 2013!


So day one.. I decided to start outside of my comfort zone. I would normally just go to Russian red by Mac, duh... I'm pale... red works in me... Luckily... But I wanted to be adventurous and exciting.

So I lined with cover girl: lip perfection: 220 sophisticated; then i traced that line with Mac: rebel, about half the width of each of my lips. Then I filled the middle in with Mac: Russian red I mean I have to have a little bit of a safety blanket. ;). Well I can say that I love it. Matte lips make it feel a little less "trying to hard" to me. So the Russian red (matte) mixed with rebel (satin) is nice beginning compromise for a non lipstick wearer like myself...now I'm just worried about retouching throughout the day, and seeing myself in the mirror wi colored lips, eep!!!!

So here goes nothing. Lipstick a challenge in itself. If any of ya would like to take this challenge with me it would be awesome to have some support! And any tips/ recommendations for colors for me to look into would be appreciated greatly!!! Other than that I hope you are all having a great start to 2013 !